Blue Bell Recall

By: Chesney Cassell

Blue Bell Recall

By: Chesney Cassell

What Happened?

On April 21, 2015 Blue Bell Creameries recalled their entire line of products including ice cream, frozen yogurt, sherbet, and other frozen treats because of possible contamination of Listeria monocytogenes. At first the company did not recall their whole line of products, but just a few that were suspected to be contaminated by Listeria. After seeing that more people were getting sick because of their products BBC decided to recall all of their products. Three people died in Kansas and 10 people have fallen ill from the bacteria believed to come from Blue Bell products. BBC is committed to doing the 100 percent right thing, so they are going to take all of their products off the market until they can be confident that they are all safe.

Store Letter Recalling BBC products

Listeria Symptoms

Recall

Store Letter Recalling BBC products

Listeria Symptoms

Recall

Facts About Listeria & Blue Bell Creameries (BBC)

Listeria can live for years on drains and pipes

To fully get rid of Listeria, BBC would have to take more extensive cleaning and sanitizing of equipment; increasing the swabbing and testing of facility surfaces by 800%; providing more employee training; and sending samples to a lab for testing every day

Four of the people who had fallen ill had drank milkshakes from BBC

1,600 people become seriously ill with listeria each year; about 16% of these cases result in death

Blue Bell CEO and President Paul Kruse promised to make sure all products are safe before they go back on sale

Aftermath

This recall is not only affecting big chain grocery stores. One small ice cream shop in Texas has temporarily closed due to the recall. BBC's recall on all of their products is not just affecting them, but other stores that carry their products. The affect of this is that it definitely affects Blue Bell Creameries because it hurts their reputation and makes more people reluctant to buy their products.